The Girls of Central High: or, Rivals for All Honors

CHAPTER XXV – “MOTHER-WIT”

Whether Colonel Richard Swayne was an enthusiastic and interested spectator of the sports Laura fielding did not know at the time. She was too busy on the field herself.

She and her closest friends were in the relay races; and of course she played in the basket-ball game. This time Hester Grimes managed to behave herself. She was playing under the eyes of the instructors, her own parents, and the parents of her schoolmates, and she restrained her temper.

Besides, since Laura had caught her in the matter of the veil, and she had been obliged to acknowledge that she had told a falsehood about Bobby Hargrew, Miss Grimes was much subdued.

“Really, she acts like a tame cat. What do you suppose has happened to Hester?” demanded Laura’s chum, Jess Morse, in the dressing room.

But Laura kept her own counsel.

The basket-ball game went off splendidly. So did most of the exercises. The dancing, that was interspersed between the games, pleased the parents immensely. And the final number – the dance around the Maypole erected in the middle of the green – was as pretty an outdoor picture as one could imagine, despite the fact that the girls wore dark gymnasium suits.

At the end, the running and skipping on the grass delighted the parents. To see these girls, so merry and untrammeled, with the natural grace of healthy bodies displayed in their movements, was charming. At the end of the afternoon Laura saw Colonel Swayne in close consultation with Mr. Sharp and members of the Board of Education. But the girl heard no particulars of that conference until she went to school the following Monday morning.

Just before noon she chanced to have an errand in the principal’s office. Mr. Sharp looked up at the young girl as she entered, nodded to her, and said, with a smile:

“And how does Central High’s fairy-godmother do to-day?”

Laura looked astonished, but she smiled. “Do you mean me, Mr. Sharp?”

“Who else would I mean?” he asked, chuckling. “Haven’t you heard the news?”

“Not that I was a fairy-godmother,” she returned, puzzled.

“Don’t you know that in the estimation of a certain gentleman you are the very smartest and wittiest girl who goes to this school? Because you made a thunderstorm for him, and saved a man from falling from a church steeple, he believes that it is athletics for you girls that puts the wit into your heads! But I tell him, in your case, it is ‘Mother wit.’”

“You mean Colonel Swayne?” whispered Laura, with sparkling eyes.

“I do, indeed.”

“And he has agreed to do something for us?”

“He says he will do a great deal for us,” said Mr. Sharp. “He agrees to make Central High a gift of twenty-five thousand dollars for a proper athletic field for you girls, if the Board of Education will find a like amount. And it will be found, I believe. Before many months the girls of Central High will have one of the finest athletic fields in the State.”

“Isn’t he a dear, good man?” cried Laura, with tears in her eyes. “But it wasn’t I who did it. It was because he saw us the other day, and saw how happy we were. And – perhaps – because he wants us girls to grow up and be different women from his own daughter.”

“Ah! perhaps that last is true, too,” said the principal, softly.

The sun shining in at the long window behind the principal almost dazzled Laura, yet as she looked toward him through her tears she saw something that made her dart forward.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Sharp.

“Oh! the poor fish!” cried the girl. “That sun is pouring right in upon them.”

The four new goldfish in the principal’s bowl were swimming around and around madly. Mr. Sharp saw the reason for these activities at once.

“I declare!” he said, with contrition. “I usually remember to pull down the shade.”

“Oh! the water is almost hot!” cried Laura, putting her hand in the bowl.

“Let me move that stand,” said the principal.

But Laura suddenly held up her hand with such a bright, yet amazed expression on her face, that the principal was startled.

“Please! Please, Mr. Sharp, send for John! Tell him to bring a pail of fresh water and the scoop net. Let him take the fish out of the water here. I have a – a tremendous idea.”

“What’s this? what’s this?” demanded the principal, with a puzzled smile. “One of your great ideas, Miss Belding.”

“Don’t make fun of me, sir,” cried the girl, earnestly. “It is the very greatest idea I ever had. And if it is a true idea, then it is bound to make a certain person the happiest girl in Centerport to-day!”

Mr. Sharp picked up the desk telephone and called the janitor. In five minutes the old man appeared and the struggling fish were scooped out of the water.

“Now, young lady?” demanded the principal.

“Let the bowl of water stand just as it does. See! Look at the ‘spot-light’ on the floor. Why, the oil in the floor fairly smokes! See! A great burning-glass!”

She swished the wastepaper basket, again almost full of scrap paper, so that the rays of the sun, passing through window pane and water-filled bowl, struck upon the loose papers. In a few minutes a light smoke began to rise from the basket. A bit of the paper turned brown slowly, and then curled up and broke into flame.

“Great Heavens!” gasped the principal. “John, put that out! The girl is a regular little firebug! Is that what you have learned from your dipping into physics and chemistry?”

He ran and pulled down the shade to shut out the sun. Then he turned with both his hands held out to the trembling girl.

“I see! I see!” he cried. “I should have seen it before. ‘Mother wit,’ indeed! Colonel Swayne is right. You are an extraordinarily smart girl. That is how the fire started before – and the fish were dead when you emptied the bowl of water upon the burning basket.

“Your young friend is freed of suspicion, Miss Belding. I congratulate her on having such a friend. I congratulate you – Why, why! my dear child! You are crying?”

“Because I am such a dunce!” gasped Laura, through her tears, and with both hands over her face.

“Such a dunce?” demanded the amazed principal.

“Ye – yes, sir! I should have known what started the fire all the time. I should have seen it at once!”

“Why, pray?”

“Because it was a burning glass that started another fire in Bobby’s father’s store that very day – and I put it out by shutting out the sun. I should have seen this right then and there, and saved poor Bobby all this trouble. Don’t call me smart! I – I’m a regular dunce.”

But other people did not think just as Laura did about it. Indeed, the principal’s statement that she possessed “Mother wit,” went the rounds of the school and the neighborhood, and those who loved Laura Belding – and they were many – began to call her from that time, in gentle sportiveness, by that nickname – “Mother Wit.” And if you wish to read more about Laura Belding, and her friends, and the athletic trials and triumphs of the girls of Central High, they will be found narrated in the second volume of this series, entitled, “The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna; Or, The Crew That Won.”

Bobby Hargrew’s delight when she was called up publicly before the whole school at Morning Assembly, and Principal Sharp told her that she was freed from any taint of blame in connection with the fire in his office, can scarcely be described. But she knew who to thank particularly for her escape from expulsion, and if one would wish to find a more loyal supporter of Laura Belding than Clara Hargrew, one must search “the hill district” of Centerport well.

And the other girls were glad that Bobby was freed from suspicion, too. Now the crew of the eight-oared shell hoped to make a better showing in the forthcoming water sports. Bobby was active in other athletics. The girls of Central High were out to win all honors, and in the future it was hoped that the standing of the school in the Girls’ Branch League would be high indeed.

And with that hope we will leave them.

THE END